W. H. Auden Quotes About Giving

Quotes about: Giving

• A small grove massacred to the last ash,
  An oak with heart-rot, give away the show:
  This great society is going to smash;
  They cannot fool us with how fast they go,
  How much they cost each other and the gods.
  A culture is no better than its woods.

  W. H. Auden

  Heart, Giving, Environmental

  Shield of Achilles (1955) "Bucolics"

• Of course, Behaviourism 'works'. So does torture. Give me a no-nonsense, down-to-earth behaviourist, a few drugs, and simple electrical appliances, and in six months I will have him reciting the Athanasian Creed in public.

  W. H. Auden

  Funny, Science, Simple

  A CertainWorld "Behaviorism" (1970)

• A writer, or at least a poet, is always being asked by people who should know better: “Whom do you write for?” The question is, of course, a silly one, but I can give it a silly answer. Occasionally I come across a book which I feel has been written especially for me and for me only. Like a jealous lover I don’t want anybody else to hear of it. To have a million such readers, unaware of each other’s existence, to be read with passion and never talked about, is the daydream, surely, of every author.

  W. H. Auden

  Silly, Book, Passion

• To me Art's subject is the human clay, / And landscape but a background to a torso; / All Cezanne's apples I would give away / For one small Goya or a Daumier.

  W. H. Auden

  Art, Apples, Giving

  1936 'Letter to Byron', pt.3, stanza 20, collected in Poems, Essays, Dramatic Writings 1927-1939 (1977).

• The condition of mankind is, and always has been, so miserable and depraved that, if anyone were to say to the poet: "For God's sake stop singing and do something useful like putting on the kettle or fetching bandages," what just reason could he give for refusing?

  W. H. Auden

  Giving, Singing, Sake

  "The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays" by W. H. Auden, ("Writing"), (p. 27), 1962.

• A shilling life will give you all the facts.

  W. H. Auden

  Giving, Facts

  'Look, Stranger!' (1936) no. 13

• Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell, But on earth indifference is the least We have to dread from man or beast. How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me. Admirer as I think I am Of stars that do not give a damn, I cannot, now I see them, say I missed one terribly all day. Were all stars to disappear or die, I should learn to look at an empty sky And feel its total dark sublime, Though this might take me a little time.

  W. H. Auden

  Stars, Passion, Dark

  W. H. Auden, “The More Loving One”

• Rhymes, meters, stanza forms, etc., are like servants. If the master is fair enough to win their affection and firm enough to command their respect, the result is an orderly happy household. If he is too tyrannical, they give notice; if he lacks authority, they become slovenly, impertinent, drunk and dishonest.

  W. H. Auden

  Art, Winning, Drunk

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